Bite size highlights from 2025: The Clean State Series

Welcome to 2026, with a curtain-raiser series of bite size highlights drawn from the 2025 wrap up.

2025 started with a summer series featuring nine episodes I produced a few years ago for The RegenNarration spin-off podcast Clean State, focused on regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. That series included previously unheard conversations and still has plenty of currency.

Here's how I previewed it a year ago in ep 236. And here are the voices, places and tunes you're hearing today:

0m - Chantal Caruso (ep 237), with Eden is Lost, by Selfless Orchestra 

0.39 - Dr Gary Kendrick (ep 238) 

0.50 -  Dr Vanessa Rauland (ep 239)

1.10 - Shannon Leigh (ep 240)

1.28 - Dale Tilbrook (ep 241)

1.43 - Stephen King (ep 242)

2.07 - Cindy Stevens (with husband Simon Wallwork) (ep 243)

2.36 - A little Station ID (ep 244), with A Forests Dream, by Cloudjumper (from Free Music Archive), for the ep with Jess Beckerling, now a WA MP

2.55 - Clinton Walker in language (ep 245), of Murujuga in WA (awarded World Heritage status last year)

3.26 - Clinton Walker in English (ep 245), with Stones & Bones, by Owls of the Swamp.

To access all episodes, including the full 2025 highlights package in ep 289, head to the website (where there’ll often be photos), or wherever you get your podcasts. 

With thanks to our guests and the musicians who generously granted permission for their music to be heard here.

Title image: Clinton Walker at Murujuga (from his website).

Chapter markers.

Chapters

• 0:07 Making Climate Action Mainstream
• 0:38 Building A Carbon Care Economy
• 0:50 Solar For Schools That Pays Forward
• 1:09 Learning From Copenhagen’s Bike Shift
• 1:28 Centering Aboriginal Culture As Strength
• 1:43 One Dollar Per Square Metre Idea
• 2:06 A Child’s Question Sparks Action
• 2:36 Appetite For Culture And Country

Transcript

Chantal Caruso: 0:07

Our whole kind of reason for being is to show that climate action is mainstream, that the community are hungry for it, that the focus shouldn't be on individual action. That's important, like we all want to do the right thing, but I think people get very disheartened when they're not seeing leadership from our government. And if they took leadership they would be so supported, and that's why we're there, we're there to build a constituency to show that it is mainstream and they would be so supported by taking action.

Dr Gary Kendrick: 0:38

So you can generate a whole economy around looking after the carbon balance of the globe locally, regionally, and nationally. Why we don't do it is beyond me.

Dr Vanessa Rauland: 0:50

They can lend that money out to schools, schools can borrow that money, pay for the infrastructure and then pay that loan off back to the Department of Education once the solar is paid off, and then the department can then lend that money to another school to do the same thing, and you just get this continual rollout of solar in a in a really affordable fashion. Like it's such a no-brainer.

Shannon Leigh: 1:09

In Copenhagen specifically, that was not a bike-dominated culture 50 years ago. So they've transformed themselves into prioritizing it, and now it is the preferred mode of transport for people living in that city because they've made it accessible.

Dale Tilbrook: 1:28

What's our unique offer? It's Aboriginal culture. And I think it's going to be even more relevant when we get past this stage because people have started to want to go back to basics.

Stephen King: 1:43

We had to try and find a way to help social housing tenants, and then one night was very late, uh, it just popped into my head, why don't I just, you know, for the installation I installed for homeowners, why don't I just say one dollar per square metre get funds free installation for social housing? And remarkably it worked.

Cindy Stevens: 2:06

The lack of leadership on a federal level, we were getting really frustrated about and voicing that and having those conversations at home. And of course, our kids are listening to these conversations, and our youngest Archie kind of piped up one night and said, Well, what are you guys doing about it? And we kind of looked at each other and said, Yeah, well, what are we doing about it? And that's when Simon put out the tweet, and he got a massive response, way more than what we had expected from other farmers.

AJ: 2:36

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Clinton Walker: 3:23

Ready for a yarn, right? Yeah, oh people love it. And I didn't realise how much of Australians especially had an appetite for this sort of thing. Because, you know, a lot of people realise that they never grew up understanding Aboriginal culture. You live with Aboriginal people, you live on a country that was Aboriginal people's country with song lines that are going back tens of thousands of years and sacred sites, etc. But people never saw it. They lived in a bubble.